Car bomb kills 10 Iraqis, wounds 68 (Lead)

Baghdad, March 5 (DPA) A car bomb in the Iraqi province of Babil killed 10 people and wounded 68 Thursday morning, the police said. The blast targeted the Hamza al-Gharbi district, south of Babil’s provincial capital Hilla, a source in the Hilla police force said Thursday.

Hamza al-Gharbi is some 130 km south of Baghdad.

Thursday’s bombing in Hilla followed a string of attacks in northern Iraq Wednesday. A Sunni tribal leader and his family were among 10 Iraqis killed in three separate incidents in the northern cities of Mosul and Tikrit Wednesday, Iraqi police said.

Al-Qaeda militants fatally shot Sheikh Ziab Ahmed Ziara, his wife and son near their home in the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit. The three were apparently targeted because Sheikh Ziab, the leader of the al-Ahbab tribe, had worked with US-led forces to fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

That shooting was followed by two bombings targeting Iraqi security forces near the northern city of Mosul that together killed six Iraqi soldiers and policemen.

A suicide bomber also died in an attack on a police checkpoint Wednesday, Mosul police said.

Iraqi security forces in late February launched a push to arrest militants in Mosul, which they have dubbed “Operation New Hope”.

Mosul is the capital of Nineveh province, which is divided primarily between Sunni Arabs in the south-west of the province and Kurds in the north. It remains among the most dangerous areas in Iraq.